18 Hours To Go......

Yay! We have safely arrived in the Shanxi Province in the capital city of Taiyuan! The flight today was only a couple of hours. We are staying at the Shanxi Grand Hotel, which is another beautiful, older hotel. Our accommodations are somewhat cozier, but we figure that will help out in the bonding process tomorrow! It's very clean and has delicious food, plus a great atmosphere. In the main lobby, there is a piano player who plays American show tunes which makes it feel like you are back home. I'm including some pictures of our hotel room, lobby, and directly outside. My favorite spot in our new room is the crib they have waiting for Riley! It was pretty amazing to see that green crib and know that our baby would be in it very soon! We decorated it with some of her things and took some pictures.

After we landed today, we were taken directly to the Bank of China to exchange our American money into Chinese yuan. Other people had warned us about how Chinese people view personal space differently than we do. That is, they stand a lot closer to you than we do in the States. This made David and me a nervous wreck in the bank when we had to pull out $8,000 to exchange. Everyone knew our business. A man walked up and offered to exchange with us directly so that we wouldn't have to wait in the line. I'm so glad our guide, Emma, was there to translate for us and take care of us during this process. The stack of money they gave to us was so much larger than what we gave them. David and Elizabeth wanted to take pictures of it when we got back to the hotel. Now it is safely locked away and will be out of our possession within the next 48 hours.

For those of you reading this who know how David and Elizabeth act, I would like you to know that these two nuts are continuing to embarrass me halfway around the world. When I was talking seriously to Ms. Lin at the airport, David asked her how do you say "Gary" in Chinese? I wanted to crawl under the table, especially when she found out that his name was David. People are obviously noticing us because we look different. Add to that, David and his famous one-liners with his sidekick Elizabeth. When the three of us start giggling, believe me people really stare at us. I guess they will stare even more tomorrow when they realize that we talk funny, act silly, AND have one of their Chinese babies!

Tonight at dinner we met another sweet family from Sweden (Peter & Cecilia) who are adopting a handsome little boy from the same orphanage where Riley is. They will be with us the next couple of days as we experience our birthing pains and deliveries together. They also have a beautiful Chinese little girl named Ella. It will be nice to have someone to share all of this with us. We did find out this afternoon that we will be getting Riley a few hours later than I first thought. We leave our hotel at 3:00 pm to head over to the Civil Affairs Office and should have her in our arms at or around 3:30. So that means sometime close to 2:30 am (June 7th) Nashville time that we will receive her. Oh what a glorious moment that will be! I cannot wait to tell you all about it! Goodnight from Taiyuan....